Corinthians 5:9-10 The judgement seat (Bema) of Christ
2 Corinthians 5:9-10 · Roger Henderson · Apr 3, 2022
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 102
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261926341131

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So actually this is going to be two lessons, today and next week. So if you want to get the full picture, you've got to come next week too. Okay. So we're looking at verse 10 of 2 Corinthians. We've been going through, if you haven't been with us before, we've been going through 1 and 2 Corinthians.

We started back I don't know a year and a half ago in 1st Corinthians so we're going through 1st and 2nd Corinthians so now we're up to the verse that talks about the bema and notice one thing the translators have decided that the word bema and we'll look at that shortly. It's actually the Bhima of Christ. So judgment seed is the translation of that Greek word Bhima. So one question will be, is that a good translation?

So keep that in mind as we go through here. We'll address that. So this is an outline that I kind of put together. Oops, I went too far. So actually we've been going through chapter 5, we looked at the, we have a building from God, a wonderful picture we looked at for a while. And then 5-9 we looked at the Spirit as a pledge in our ambition last week.

And this week, we're gonna have two weeks on this. The Judgment Seat of Christ, or the Bema of Christ. And then that's gonna follow, we're gonna have, actually after that, will be actually Resurrection Sunday. And Mike's gonna be doing the messages starting then. And we'll go into the rest of this chapter.

Okay, for that. So let's look at, so actually I borrowed, this is from my brother Hal Malloy back in 2004. So what I did is, I went into PowerPoint, and I took out all his, And Andrew can appreciate this. His father, our brother Hal, he was a master at doing this and so he had a lot of stuff on this chart. So this chart just shows, this is a timeline, starts at creation, shows Noah's flood, Pentecost, then it shows the church age. which is terminated by the rapture, and then the seven year tribulation, and then the thousand year millennial kingdom.

And the reason I'm doing this is that we're looking at what Paul calls the Bema of Christ, and what we're trying to decide, and it's called a judgment of Christ, so we're trying to decide how does that judgment fit in with the other judgments in Scripture.

And so I'm gonna look at some of the judgments, not all of them, and try to contrast them with the Bema. First of all, there are three judgments that occur up until Pentecost. The first is the fall. We'll look at that shortly. Then Noah's flood, and God's judged all of creation in the flood. And then the cross can be thought of as a judgment as well. So let's look at the fall first of all.

So in Genesis chapter 3, and actually I started with Adam. If you go back, if you're familiar with chapter 3, you'll notice that God already talked about the judgment on Satan and the judgment on a woman. And now he addresses Adam, and Adam is the head of the race, so he actually, quote, pins the blame on Adam, so to speak. He says, Adam, here's the deal.

He says, then to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you will eat. Eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread.

And that's a significant judgment, but that's not the primary thing that comes out of the fall. What comes out of the fall is described very vividly in Romans chapter five here. So let's look at that. Therefore, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

And it goes on, down to verse 18. So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even through one act of righteousness there resulted in justification of life to all men. And then verse 19, for as through one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, even so through one's obedience, the many will be made righteous. So what we see the last part of that is that we see that he talks about the one, Adam and he contrasts him with Christ in both those last two verses.

So the point is that God judged man and He judged all of creation by the fact that death came by one man and it polluted the entire human race and it remains to date. Sin has polluted the entire human race, it's spread to all men. the transgressions of one man Adam were of effect to all men.

No man can say he's not free of sin. Okay, so that's God's judgment on sin. All right, so next we have the, so, and then we're gonna skip over the account of the flood and let's look at the judgment of the cross. So the cross can be looked at as a judgment as well in this respect. So sins and the sin nature have been judged by Christ's death on the cross. So two aspects, the root of the problem, the sin nature, and sins, the fruit of the nature, were judged at the cross. The sins of the world have been propitiated and His death unto sin have separated it from us.

So the believer, I borrowed this from Chafer, so Chafer makes three comments about that. The believer has been in court, condemned, sentenced, and executed in the person of Christ. Christ was his substitute. Christ took his place. The cross completed this judgment upon sin. And he said in John 19, it is finished. It is therefore something to be believed for salvation. And this is just critical.

I mean, if you've never come across this before, if you've never thought about this before, I'm sure most people have in this auditorium, Christ has taken care of the sin issue. The sin issue is not the problem anymore. Man's sins are not the issue. The issue, the total issue for anyone to understand about Christ is that he needs to believe what Christ has done. He needs to believe what I just went through in these four bullets. That Christ has taken care of the sin problem. Both the root of the problem, the sin nature, and the fruit of the problem, the sins. That's been completed by Christ. Man's job, what man needs to do is believe that Christ did that. And that he's saved. And once he does that, he is saved.

So a couple verses that I mentioned in the context here, 1 John 2.2, and he himself is a propitiation for our sins, propitiation is a big word for satisfaction, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

And then 2 Corinthians 5.21, he made him, Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So that's, we looked at the, that's the judgment of the cross, and it's a wonderful judgment. God judged sin, and that has benefited all of mankind. But sadly, only a few of mankind, as we see here, only a few have responded to that. It's a sad situation, but that's, you know, it's, I think it attests, Bonnie and I have talked about this a lot, my wife Bonnie, why do so few respond? And I know you go, you grapple, you say, why is, how can that be?

It's so crucial. And I think it's because we underrate, we underrate man's fallen condition, the power of sin, the sin nature in a man's life, a woman's life. We underrate that. We say, well, you know, it's, you know, it's this, it is, that's an issue. That's the issue, that's why God had to judge it. Anyway, that's a different message.

Okay, so we talked about the first three judgments, so let's go on with our picture here. So the next part is starting at the rapture, when the saints, both the dead in Christ and the living saints are resurrected, and we have the tribulation period. That can be thought of as a judgment. And then we have the second coming of Christ. Then we have the one we're gonna talk about this week and next week, the judgment seat of Christ.

And that occurs, actually Sheryl Anderson talked to me a little bit, said, Roger, I think that comes right after the rapture. And I agree with her. I was looking at this gentleman named Dwight Pentecost. He has an interesting name. Anyway, he's a great writer, but he talked about the timing, and it seems like that that resurrection and judgment and scripture kind of go together. So the point is we're going to be resurrected and then the beam of judgment comes almost immediately after that.

And then next is called the judgment of the nations. And there's one that our brother Hal didn't put on here. It's a judgment of the Jewish nation of Israel. It occurs in there too. The judgment of the nations occurs at the end of the tribulation period. And then we have the last three here. We're only gonna look at the Great White Throne Judgment.

So what happens is, the reason I'm doing this, it's a cool picture, right? I mean, you can't deny that. We're getting requests. We got one request so far for a copy of this. It's hot off the presses, but anyway. That's supposed to be a joke, anyway. Anyway, if you look here and you'll see we have the Bema Judgment, we have the Judgment of the Nations, and we have the Great White Throne.

Well, unfortunately, some people, I thought of this phrase, it can be dangerous to your Christian life to be a casual reader of scripture. Does that sound right? Dangerous to your Christian life to be a casual reader of scripture. What I mean by that is, if you're not careful, you might say, well, you know, that judgment, those all three are probably the same thing. If you're not careful, and you think, well, God's judging us, yeah, here's one aspect, and here's this aspect.

But boy, you start looking at those, and studying those, and spending some time. And men have done this their whole lives. They've devoted to studying parts of scripture, and we can benefit by that. They're not the same judgment. They're different judgments for different people. So that's significant, and that's why we're gonna take the time to do this. Okay, so I thought it would be good to kind of relate.

In these judgments, we're gonna see there's a judgment for believers in some cases, There's a judgment for unbelievers in other cases. And in one case, there's a judgment for believers and unbelievers. Okay, so let's define our terms. A believer in scripture is one who has put his faith and trust in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, many times you'll find a verse that talks about Jesus Christ as God, and they'll talk about the fact that he shed his blood on Calvary and paid the price for our sins. So that's the person and work of Christ.

But what you also see here is that if you're good, careful reader of Scripture, you'll see that Romans 8.1, there is now there, I'm sorry, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But we have our verse This verse I have for today as well, Romans 14, 21b, for we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

So a casual reader says, well, wait a minute, there's a conflict there. There's no condemnation, but we're gonna be judged. What's going on here? Okay, keep that in mind. Okay, an unbeliever in scripture is one who has rejected Jesus Christ as God and his work on the cross. So what's in store for him? Well, unfortunately, he's already been judged, according to John 3.18b, he who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And there's a further problem, and this describes the great white throne in Revelation 20.12, and I saw the dead. Whenever you see the dead in scripture, That's a phrase, Christ used that phrase. He said, let the dead bury themselves. That's a term for the unbeliever. And he saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. The books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged. from the things which were written in the books, in the books plural, according to their deeds.

Okay, we'll spend a little bit of time on that judgment. Okay, so now, let's look at, in my picture, I told you we're going to look at the beam of judgment, the judgment of the nations, and the great white throne. So the beam will be last, we'll look at this one first. This is the judgment of the nations. As I said, it occurs immediately after the tribulation. And Christ has the second advent. So Christ is on the earth. This judgment occurs on the earth. It's all the living nations. Remember, this is the product. Going into the tribulation, we have no believers, right? All the believers have been raptured. They've gone to be with the Lord. But at the end of the tribulation, we have believers. The 144,000 evangelists have been evangelizing.

And we have a group of people, both Jew and Gentile. This is addressing the nations, the Gentiles. So this is the living nations, they're going to be judged on their acceptance or rejection of Christ. So some background here in Matthew 25. It says, But when the Son of Man comes, speaking of Christ returning in the second advent, in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne, and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep and the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. So we see here that the sheep represent believers and the goats represent unbelievers.

So we see here that it still, in this time period, it still takes faith. Faith in what Christ, in this case, what Christ has done, in Christ's messengers. Christ's message has been going out. Some accepted that, the believers. Some didn't accept it. But they were judged in the fact whether they accepted the message, the messengers. or they did not accept the messengers. So I kind of cut and pasted that in between.

So let's continue on. The conditions were there was no resurrection. So these are living people on the earth at the end of the tribulation period. There was no resurrection mentioned. I'm doing this because we're going to contrast later on. No books were used. No books were used for judgment. The separation is made and judgment given, and then the reason is stated for that afterwards. The Son of Man, or Jesus Christ, is the judge.

The result is, believers, it says, of the sheep, he says, go into my kingdom, and ultimately they have eternal life. But to the unbelievers, the lake of fire. Pretty, you know, something to think about. But if you're in Christ, you're good. Okay, we'll see that shortly. Okay, so now, Great White Throne. So now we go to the end. A thousand years have passed. We go to the end of the millennial kingdom. Okay, the place is in the heavens before the Great White Throne.

And it says, in this case, it said that the dead, and actually I was gonna try to read that. Let's see here, it says the dead, The dead were resurrected, basically, is what I was trying to point out here. The dead were resurrected. Okay, so the basis of judgment here is rejection of Christ.

So in this case, Christ opens a book of life. We read that. He opens a book of life. And if their name was not found there, their works of self-righteousness are judged by the book of works. So there are actually two books involved, the book of life and the book of works. So the conditions, resurrection is mentioned, the resurrected unbelievers. The books are mentioned, the book of life and the book of works. And it says, you know, he examines those books.

And what always struck me about this is so sad. They rest upon what their works are. Man's works are judged. And man's works will always fall short of God's works. For the believer, it's Christ's works that God judges us by, not our works. And it's kind of, you know, he judges us by our works. He also, he gives us a good works to perform, and he rewards us for it. with a pretty cool deal. So Jesus Christ is the judge here. unbelievers are to go to the lake of fire. So pretty grim stuff here. Okay, today's verse. So now we move to the Bema.

So I read the New American Standard and then actually the other version was read. So let's read the Weiss translation. For it is necessary in the nature of the case for all of us to be openly shown as to our true character before the judgment seat of Christ in order that each one may receive the things which were practiced through the agency of our bodies, whether they were good or bad." And I added the editorial comment, worthless.

I'll show you why that should be true in a few minutes here. Okay, so we're going to look at the Bema now, the Bema judgment. Okay, so let's look at verse 10. It says, so I like to, you may think, Roger, can't you settle on translation? You never satisfy, you gotta throw another translation for me here. So I use the interlinear this time just because it had a little bit different things to point out.

For it is necessary for us to all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ. It is necessary, it's the idea, it must be, it's a necessity, and we're gonna see this is a good necessity, this is not a bad necessity. Maybe you're thinking, well, Roger's gonna show us this judgment seat of Christ is gonna be, boy, that's something for me to really, I better think about this a bit, I better go home and get my P's and Q's together, you know? I gotta get busy. Well, no, I think the Lord wants you to rest about the judgment seat of Christ. Rest and trust him. So let's see why you can do that here. is necessary for us all, all believers, none accepted, though none that will not be at the judgment seat of Christ.

So this is shortly after the rapture. To be revealed is the idea to, it's in the passive voice. So Christ is gonna be the one that's the actor in this. He's gonna be revealing one's true character. And you say to yourself, well, I know my true character, and I don't like it. I don't like what my true character is like. And that's a good thing, because it's Christ's life, not your life.

When you look at ourselves many times, we think of all our shortcomings. We think, well, I did this, I said this, I said that. Well, God only looks at Christ's life in us. That's what is important to Him, and how we walk with Him. Before is the idea. It can be used in a couple different ways, and it has some meanings like inside of a person, or before a person, or in presence of a person.

So which is it? And hopefully we'll see. I'm gonna try to build a picture here of what, if you had a camera or a video, what would the scene look like at the Bema? The Bema of Christ, what would that look like? What would that picture be? I'm gonna give you some, what the internet says, and then we'll hopefully next week show you what it really says. Okay, Judgment Seat of Christ. So the Judgment Seat of Christ is a translation of the word bema, B-E-M-A. That's a transliteration of the Greek word. It's primarily a step, and it's translated in Acts, the step. And it was used for simply a raised platform. So I'm up on a raised platform, right? I'm standing above you guys here. I'm on a raised platform, reach by steps. So I'm gonna be me here right now, right? Okay? All right. So in Pentecost, the guy I looked at a little bit this week, Dwight Pentecost, he says, and he actually borrowed this from, he not borrowed it, this is a reference that he quoted from another person.

In the Grecian games in Athens, it was called the bima or the reward seat. From here, the umpire of the games, apparently, rewarded all contestants. It was never used of a judicial bench. So his point here is, don't think of it as judgment. It was what happens at the games, like at the Olympics, at the Olympic Games.

You notice, I actually went online, they have raised platforms there, right? They have like the gold, person for the gold is up higher, and the silver is down here, and the bronze is even lower, so they actually have, I think it goes gold, silver, bronze, I may have had that flipped around, but anyway, they're all different heights, if you look carefully at those steps. So that's kind of the picture, it's a raised platform.

So our brother Hal said, well, why are we beating ourselves up here? Wouldn't it be better to call this the reward seat of Christ? And I agree with him, why don't we call it the reward seat of Christ? Let's don't, you know? But the question is, what is that reward seat like? Is it gonna be painful?

It's all the stuff that I thought I did for the Lord. When I helped that old lady across the street, I really did it because two guys were watching me, and they thought, good job, Roger. You helped that lady across the street. You're a cool Christian. Was that the reason I did it? Is the Lord gonna be after, oh, let's see, all those things you thought as a Christian you did were really not too good?

We'll see. Okay, so here we go. I decided just for interest, I would go on the internet. You can find a lot of stuff on the internet, right? Good and bad. Okay, so I typed in Bema, pictures of the Bema from scripture. You can type, you know, it's amazing, you can type in any word and say picture, and you'll get pictures. Now, not the picture you want, maybe, but you'll get pictures. So I did that.

Here's my first picture. Okay, so there's Christ supposedly sitting, and there's a guy a couple of steps down. Is that it? I don't know. Here's another one. This one's kind of scary. You got the fire between the Christian there and the Lord, and he has those crowns around his head, and I think he's pointing at him. I can't really see it too well, but anyway. Okay, then you got this one. This one's kind of strange.

This one looks like you have believers out there in white clothes and white, you have the Lord Jesus, and then who's sitting on the throne up there? It scares me a bit. Is that the Father? Jesus Christ, to my reading in my Bible, is the only visible member of the Trinity. So I don't know, that scared me a bit. And then my last one here, this was probably the best, I guess, I thought.

Problem is, Is everybody around? Is the Lord gonna, is he gonna be one-on-one with us, judge us one-on-one? Is that what he's gonna do? Is he gonna have the whole crowd behind us and listening in? Ah, no. So anyway, that looked, and he's putting a wreath on his head.

That one, actually none of them fit my, we'll see next week. Our brother Hal actually took a crack at this, and he has a picture for us, so keep that in mind. Come next week, and you'll see what it really was like. You'll see a photograph. No, it's from scripture. Anyway. Okay, so let's continue on here.

That each one of you may be recompensed for the things, so he's going to recompense us for the things we've done through our body. With the purpose that each one, believers, and apparently it's each one, one by one, so here's how you can build your picture better, hopefully, may be recompensed It's in the middle voice, it says to bear for oneself. So actually you could translate it, so each one may receive his pay. And there's a verse that talks about that sort of in Ephesians. It says, knowing that whatever good anyone, speaking of believers, does, he will receive this reward from the Lord.

Okay, so now we got things done through the body. So this is basically the things done in our Christian life. will be there for judgment or for rewards. Corresponding with what his practices were. So this is his course of action, his conduct of his life. And so here's a verse that talks about that.

The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. Okay, so. All right, so I like this section here. Once again, I borrowed some things from my brother Hal. Let me just get to my notes here. Okay.

All right, so now it says we're going to be judged, and there are going to be two categories of judgment. good or bad. And in Scripture, it doesn't talk necessarily about good or bad like that. It talks about good works. It doesn't say bad works. Actually, we're going to see it's worthless works.

So what kind of things are these good or good works about? So the word good is the idea good in character, aligning with God's character, beneficial in effect. So here are some things that our brother Hal kind of listed, which I thought were good. So what's the character of good works? First of all, the entire plan for good works has been predetermined by God. And kind of corollary to that, we are vessels he uses to implement his plan.

And we see that in Ephesians 2.10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, so that we may walk in them." I've always loved that verse.

It just, you know, it's to take the pressure off. We don't have to think up I gotta think up a good work. Lord, help me to think up a good work. What's a good work today I can do? Well, He doesn't ask us to do that. He asks us to walk by faith, walk with Him, live our Christian life by walking by faith, and it will become obvious to us. It's obvious to us the good works we should be doing. Some aren't obvious. we should love one another, and so on. So there are some obvious ones. So you don't rack your brain, what's a good work that, no, it's in his plan. God is the one who energizes us to do his good plan.

And actually we see that in Philippians 2.13, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. God also is the one who begins a good work and completes it.

We see that in Philippians 1.6, the last part. He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. The criteria for good works is to fulfill his eternal purpose. His eternal purpose is to declare his glory, reveal his glory, and share his glory, and then be glorified through our works, but our works are to be His works, right?

It's Christ in me, so He's gonna reward us for our works and our works that He did through us. They're imperishable, so in that passage where you read about the six different things, the gold, silver, and precious stone, they represent the imperishable good works.

So how about the bad works? Bad in the sense of being worthless or contemptible. It's often used in the idea of evil or wicked practices. But it's worthless. So here's a character of worthless works. Its source is not in Christ. The main thing about bad or worthless works is it's not sourced in Christ.

In that verse he quotes there, it talks about I am divine, you are the branches. It has to be sourced in Christ to be a good work. So if it's not sourced in Christ, it's a worthless work. And if it's not out from faith, without faith it's impossible to please God, right? It must be out of faith. So it must be sourced in Christ and must be out of faith. They do not glorify God.

Only God's work can glorify God. They're perishable. So in that passage we're going to study next week, they're wood, hay, and stubble. They will be burned. They won't make it through the fire. They'll be burned down or totally consumed in that context.

Okay, so for next week, we're gonna look at Romans 14.10. Let me just read that, 14.10, 11, and 12.

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we all will stand before the judgment or reward seat of Christ. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess, and give praise to God. So then, let each one of you give an account to God, give account of himself to God.

So one question we're gonna try to address next week in this verse is, will there be sorrow? When we give an account to God, will we feel bad? So think of the picture here. this judgment is after we're in our glorified bodies. We no longer have a sin nature. So we're standing before the ward seat of God. Are we going to feel sorrow about this? That's one question. Shame and sorrow.

Then 1 Corinthians 3.8, it says, now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

So let's skip down to verse 11. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And that's kind of key because we're gonna see next week the foundations are key, If we lay a good work on our foundation, that's not of God. That can't be pleasing to Him. That can't be rewardable.

So 12 says, but if any man builds on a foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, each man's work will become evident for the day. We'll show it because it will be revealed with fire. And fire will test the quality of each man's work.

Something to note here is that from the man's perspective, it goes in, he has All of his works before him, some are in the category of wood, hay, and stubble. Some are gold, silver, and precious stone. But we don't actually know where they stand. Maybe we have some inklings, but we do not know.

If any man's work which he has built on remains, he will receive a reward. I actually have one more verse, sorry. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss. So what would that be like? What will suffer loss mean? And the thing that makes it difficult, think about this.

We're in heaven. No, we're not. I'm sorry, we're in heaven. Yeah, I guess we are. I'm trying to think here. We have resurrected bodies, we're being judged, and we're in heaven. So how do we suffer loss where we don't have a sin nature? I don't know, there's some interesting questions here. Think about that for next week. Okay, so final thoughts. This is from Dr. Chafer.

The doctrine of rewards must be considered an essential companion to the doctrine of saving grace. Since the saved one in no way is allowed to contribute to the grounds of His acceptance. We can't bring anything that would merit us. It becomes certain that His service is not credited as a salvation. Therefore, His service is the subject of rather of rewards, which are divine acknowledgments of the sacrifice and services rendered.

The judgment is wrought at the bema, which is a judgment seat of Christ. So let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for your marvelous word, Lord. We thank you that we are gonna stand before you, and it will be a time of rewards, and we pray just our understanding of this, and we thank you that you are going to reward us, and it will be rewarded based upon what you did through us. As we allowed you to work in our lives, and you worked out your purposes, we know that's pleasing to you. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.